


from one heart to another

by saunatonttu



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Brooding, Gen, Pre-Relationship, i say that but there's a kiss involved, memories disguised as nightmares, some weird hybrid between friendship and romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 12:23:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9323408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu
Summary: He felt Charles’s presence before he heard the door open.How nice of Charles to give him a moment to prepare for the creaking sound that the opening of the door let out.“A little early for a morning brooding, is it not, Erik?”





	

Sleep didn’t come easily to him, and even when it did, it was shallow and light enough for absolutely anything to be enough to stir him from it. This was how Erik had lived his life post-Schmidt – or post-Shaw, maybe. The new name had taken some time to get used to, even though he heard about it months ago.

At Charles’s, it had gradually become easier to sleep a solid six hours in a row without waking up once to check his surroundings.  

But there were the bad nights, too. Nightmares littering Erik’s usually dreamless subconscious, and memories that woke up Erik, who was left a panting, sweating mess in their wake. Those nights drained him from reason; nothing else but bone-deep rage would remain. It was as much a coping method as it was an effect of his past.

That night was one of those nights when Erik woke up at three am with the sense of loss burning between his ribs like a recently erupted volcano, his throat constricting and aching like he had been yelling. He might have. He had received complaints from hotels before, even though the walls had supposed to have been thick.

The first few moments after his abrupt awakening he spent catching his breath, trying to place himself in the current world and situation. Not Auschwitz. Not Auschwitz. Schmidt – Shaw – wasn’t there, even though his touch lingered like a disease, and Erik could feel the press of the coin against the palm of his hand.

It took perhaps five minutes for his senses to register that he was nowhere near Auschwitz and that he was lying on a bed much more comfortable than anything he had even laid his eyes upon during that time of his life.

The sheets were damp from his sweat, and Erik forced himself to sit up to get rid of the disgusting feeling of bed sheets clinging to his bare back.

The room was silent – there were no clocks or any other pieces of technology that would make any sound – but outside an owl was hooting, rather loudly at that.

Erik heaved out a sigh, which didn’t feel good with his dry throat, and rubbed at his eyes from where wet tracks ran down to his cheeks and jaw. They would dry quickly. Tears never stayed with him for long.

Erik glanced outside once he was done with that, hands settled over his thighs. It was dark, but not the deepest darkness there was, and so Erik pulled himself up to spend the next two minutes looking for his trousers wherever they may be.

As it turned out, they were neatly folded precisely where he had left them a few hours ago – on the chair. Erik would have been amused, as he had spent too many moments frantically waving his hands around trying to feel the metal of the belt buckle, but his insides were still quaking from the dream.

He sneaked down the stairs of the mansion as quietly as possible – he was all right at stealth, but it wasn’t necessarily his style – and only dared to breathe deeper when he got outside, where the stars were out and the traffic nonexistent. Both were miracles, considering how urban the area was.

But Erik’s eyes went to the crow that flew over, the one thing blacker than the night sky.

It wasn’t a gracious bird, and it certainly wasn’t a beautiful bird. Some people hated it for no real reason. Because it didn’t fit in the aesthetic pleasures of people… nor was it useful in ways that horses or cows were.

Erik exhaled. That day, there had been crows around, too.

 

 

He sat on the wooden stairs of the veranda of the mansion, arms resting over his knees and head alternatively tilted upwards or downwards depending on where his thoughts were headed. Goosebumps ran over the flesh of his bare arms, and Erik shivered.

He felt Charles’s presence before he heard the door open.

How nice of Charles to give him a moment to prepare for the creaking sound that the opening of the door let out.

“A little early for a morning brooding, is it not, Erik?”

Erik shrugged, not bothering to look back when Charles moved closer to him. He didn’t feel particularly safe now, but rationality claimed dominance over his dream-memories.

For the time being.

Erik was good at being in control in front of others, but he didn’t have the coin to focus on right then. Erik sighed, recalling—

“It’s best to not torture yourself like that right after whatever dream you had,” Charles said, not unkindly but about as tactlessly as Erik would have in his shoes. Telepaths.

Erik’s toes tapped at the wooden stairs absently.

“Stay on your own line, Charles.” He didn’t mind Charles looking through his mind much, and there was very little Charles didn’t know about him since their first meeting, but the itch for privacy remained.

Right then, however, Erik was tired. The rage had been exhausted quicker than ever, and his bones felt hollow yet heavy like the metals upper class women wore on their wrists and fingers.

Shaw, Schmidt, whoever the fuck he was—he wasn’t going to drop in that night and let Erik shove any sharp metallic mess resembling a sword or any kind of weapon through his head.

And Erik just wanted—

Charles sat down beside him, and put a hand over his arm. A sole source of warmth in the flesh-chilling night.

Charles’s presence tugged at the corners of Erik’s mind, tentative and respectful this time as Charles sought out consent to let him in.

Erik nodded, just slightly.

 

 

Telepaths, Erik had discovered, could do so much damage to your innermost self with so little effort that it should be recognized as the most terrifying ability amid their kind.

It was easy to kill a person; _destroying_ them was a completely different thing.

Charles could do it so easily now, and Erik wouldn’t see it coming.

_Erik, please._

Erik’s lips twitched upwards at Charles’s voice in his mind. He was sure Charles had one of his mildly exasperated and yet so fond expressions on.

 _You can’t deny it, can you?_ Erik closed his eyes and let himself sink into the comfort of Charles’s calming presence inside his mind. Still new, and perhaps passing, but still much desired.

 Charles had shown him there were things in him that he had forgotten about himself. The memory of his mother and himself, the one that Erik had thought he had lost forever like the rest of his better childhood memories.

It wasn’t—Erik would hate to call it _healing,_ but recalling something as pure as that memory had been liberating in more ways than one. Candles and Hanukkah and he and his mother without chains and pain.

It had returned Erik bits of something he had lost along the way.

Charles’s voice was as warm as the flames on the candles. _I did tell you there’s so much good in you that you don’t see, Erik._

Charles had, indeed, but words alone had never convinced Erik.

(And that, perhaps, was where their downfall lay.)

 

 

Charles’s company, both in and outside Erik’s often troubled mind, gave him the peace he needed for the night, temporary as such relief may be.

Charles shot him memories of his own past, perhaps to even the imbalance of knowledge between them. Memories of Raven, included, in and out of her human disguise. But Erik was most entertained by Charles’s drinking adventures, although there was a part of him that resented Charles’s _easy_ life.

It wasn’t a dominant part of him, and so he wouldn’t voice it – if things had gone differently, Erik could have been something similar, although far less rich and educated.

Charles making an ass of himself after drinking himself silly would never stop being hilarious, in the meantime.

 _I wish I didn’t remember that,_ Charles complained as he shuffled through the memories to pick something new to share. _Raven still teases me about it._

Erik laughed, out loud, even though the chill was getting to him for real.

A thought crossed his mind, one that he was sure he hadn’t managed to hide from Charles given the vague sense of startled amusement he felt from Charles.

Charles’s hand on his arm hadn’t moved away from Erik’s arm, either.

 _I really, really want to—_ Erik’s thought stopped there, but it wasn’t as if Charles didn’t know what he meant. He had just conjured up the mental image for them both, and, well. The crux of the matter was that Charles knew how he felt now.

And Charles simply gave a sigh that reverberated in both their minds – there was no discontent that Erik could detect – before he physically pushed deeper into Erik’s personal space and sought out the lips Erik had pressed together in thin line all this time when he wasn’t accidentally laughing.

 _You’re not the only one_ , _Erik._

Charles’s lips were much drier than he had anticipated, but Erik wasn’t about to complain as he pressed into the touch like the affection-starved man he was. The childhood memory Charles had returned to him had only made him crave for it more – physical affection, anyway. The other types still threw Erik off on occasion.

Erik smiled, strained but genuine, as Charles’s hand touched his cheek whereas Erik’s own pair stayed still on his lap.

Charles’s own pleasure tingled Erik’s consciousness as Charles shared everything: the delight, the slight worry, the… something Erik wasn’t sure how to interpret. He was a little out of touch with human emotion, so he dismissed it.

Most human emotions were easy to pass off as superficial, anyways. People were so fickle.

Charles smiled, and unlike Erik’s own version of the expression, it didn’t feel forced or sharp like a doctor’s scalpels. The kiss finished before Erik could pay attention to more, but he didn’t mind so much. It was as innocent as Erik had been in quite some time, and he could laugh sardonically about it later when he returned to his room and brooding silence that accompanied it.

“Will you come inside now?” Charles withdrew from Erik’s mind, having confirmed what he came for apparently. It was too late in the night and too early in the morning to make out every detail of Charles’s face, but it wasn’t dark enough for Erik to miss the weary posture Charles held himself with. “I suppose you think we’re above catching sicknesses, but I have tested that theory before, and it is very much a false hypothesis.”

Charles’s hair was quite a mess too. Erik smiled a little bit again.

“No one forced you to come out, Charles.”

Charles patted at Erik’s arm. “What kind of a friend would I be if I left you to brood alone on such a dreary night?” _Or would a slumber party in my room suffice?_

“A decent one,” Erik said but rose with Charles regardless.

“Not around here, no,” Charles said, voice warm and syllables soft. “It’s time for you to get used to the nosy Americans as friends, Erik.”

“Aren’t you British?”

“An Atlantic Ocean here or there,” Charles said with much too casual tone. “We’re all the same at the core.”

“I don’t think the rest of Britain would much agree with that assessment,” Erik said as they sneaked into the mansion and shut the door, “but I’ll let that one go.”

Charles laughed with him – it wasn’t so new anymore, but which might never stop feeling new. How strange.

**Author's Note:**

> Fassbender's Erik does things to my heart and I wish he'd stop.


End file.
